


Try your cold maneuvers on me

by thought



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, M/M, d/s universe queer politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 13:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21180503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: By the time Young remembers that Wikipedia exists it's far too late to put the breaks on his sexuality crisis.





	Try your cold maneuvers on me

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this very late at night and am dubious of its quality, but it's also the only thing I've written since May so I'm posting it anyway.

Everett Young is straight.

This has never been in question. He never had any kind of drunken college curiosity, no high school fumblings, no buddies helping each other out in basic. He’s comfortable in his orientation and his sexuality.

But then.

Rush.

Rush who seems incapable of taking care of himself, who is emotional and oddly fragile and painfully out of place in the military. Rush whose irrational, spontaneous rerouting of the Stargate has left them all stranded on the other side of the universe with nothing but a vague notion of whimsical romanticism about discovering new worlds and new civilizations and fucking honestly, young watched Star Trek as a kid and it never made him want to throw himself into the goddamn void with no hope of return. Rush, who has a nervous breakdown within a week because there’s no coffee, who pushes and pushes like he’s trying to provoke young into a reaction.

Yes, ok, Young made some goddamn assumptions. Chloe has full permission to hit him with a gender studies textbook. He assumed Rush was a sub, and he assumed  
rush was flirting with him, and he flirted back. Petted his hair after they didn’t die in a star and took his look of bemusement for shyness. He knows plenty of subs who need to test boundaries in order to feel safe, and he also knows a lot of subs who have had to fight and claw their way up through a professional world still stuck in the dark ages. He figures Rush is six of one, half dozen of the other.

He will realize, much later, that it was more like one third flirtation Young had no experience in recognizing, one third rush's very unique kind of nebulous mental health concerns, and one third Rush being an unmitigated asshole.

And then he’s suffering through David’s helpful chats –thinly veiled attempts to snatch his command out from under him– and they’ve both had a bit more to drink than they should have, and David says, “If only I could tell Daniel Jackson that recruiting bastard scientists works better if you sleep with them first.”

And young says, “He’s a mathematician,” because half of his fucking senior staff have beaten it in to him (occasionally literally), and then, “It wasn’t like he was under your command. I don’t see why you couldn’t mention it to Jackson, aside from the part where it’d make you a fucking dick. But that seems to be the look you’re going for lately.”

David arches an eyebrow, tips his beer to get the last drops. The body that Young is borrowing is a little shorter than him, so even sitting down David can look down condescendingly at him. “Don’t tell me you’re asking, Everett,” he says. “Because I’m certainly not telling.”

He laughs as soon as he says it, but it’s a sharp thing, switchblades in back alleys and a boot to the gut. Young leans as far back into the booth as he can get.

It’s not that he forgets the conversation as much as he convinces himself that he misunderstood something. He’s never been rapid fire clever like that, never quite in pace with the ping-pong walk and talks layered with jokes and politics and emotional warfare and a particular lore made up of academia and pop-culture and obscure trivia that has always remained opaque to him. He’s a straightforward guy. He says what he means. Safer for everybody that way. Easier. He thinks being a member of SG1 or literally anyone on Atlantis must be exhausting from the banter requirements alone.

But then the next time he’s on Earth and has some free time he googles Rush, because Voker had been bitching about how not all of them could be celebrity darlings and Rush had thrown a water bottle at his head and Young is kind of curious. Turns out there are prizes for math, and Rush as won a couple of them, but what is more fascinating is the Wikipedia article on his dead wife.

“Gloria Capple was the first openly gay performer at–” and “It has been theorized that Capple’s marriage to math prodigy Dr. Nicholas Rush was a deliberate attack on her parents’ conservative upper-class views–” and “The violinist’s battle with cancer was likely particularly fraught, given the couple’s choice to continue living in the United States where their marriage was not recognized outside of California or Massachusetts, and it is possible that this influenced her choice to remain in California instead of seeking treatment at institutions such as johns Hopkins or MD Anderson–”

He hunts down Rush’s personnel file after that, actually examines the basic information at the top that he usually skims past. And.

Well.

Fact: Young has been flirting with Rush for the past few months.  
Fact: Rush has been flirting back.  
Fact: Rush is a dom.  
Fact: Young is a dom.

…Fact: Young is straight.

But the attraction doesn’t seem to care about these facts. Even when he knows Rush isn’t pushing because he wants Young to take him in hand, Young still finds himself invigorated and passionate about every argument. Even when all their staring matches end in stalemates Young still finds Rush’s eyes fascinating. Knowing that having Rush on his knees isn’t an option doesn’t stop Young from wanting to kiss him. His fantasies start to involve more bruises and bleeding lips instead of welcoming, pliant mouths and bodies. He no longer imagines the care and responsibility of being gifted with control, but the continuous care and agility needed to maintain a debate or a mentally and physically demanding interaction in which he must constantly be at his best in a new way.

He starts avoiding Rush, which should make him feel better but just leaves him restless and on-edge. It’s not sustainable, and after he snaps at Eli for the third time in as many hours he knows he’s got to fucking get himself under control. This is all ridiculous. He made a false assumption and his body is just taking a little while to catch up. In another week or two he’ll look at rush and feel nothing but the appropriate respect for his skill and equally appropriate lack of respect for basically everything else.

This is fine. He’s handling it.

It is not fine.

Rush backs him up against a wall three days later, getting up in his face, accent fog heavy over the sharp hailstones of his rage. Young licks his lips and shoves him back, hard enough that he stumbles across the corridor and jars his hip on a consul.

Rush looks up at him and there’s something brighter in his eyes, something eager. Young never noticed the switchblades in his smile until now.

**Author's Note:**

> Now aren't we all glad I wrote this instead of the Venice Sheppard/Rush/Gloria au?


End file.
